Honor's Fury

by Fiona Harrowe

  “Mrs. Warner! Amélie! This is indeed unexpected.” She struggled against her weakness and overcame it by bringing to her mind a vision of Thaddeus as she had last seen him, the look on his face as he kissed her and rode off to war.

  “But why did you give a false name?”

  “I wanted to surprise you.”

  “You have, you have! Please sit—this chair is the most comfortable.”

  “I’ve come about my husband, or rather my husband’s body,” she said, ignoring the chair. “Lieutenant Thaddeus Warner of the Maryland Rangers.”

  “Yes?” he said with interest.

  “He was hanged as a spy at Fort Donelson in February of last year.”

  “Oh? I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “By your orders.”

  “Mine?” he asked, perplexed.

  “Yours, according to the records at Fort Donelson,” she said firmly, twisting the truth. She thought the Theodore Warder mentioned by the captain might possibly be her husband, but she was going to make Damon admit it. Only he would know.

  Damon frowned, the black brows drawn together, the dark eyes thoughtful. “I was at Fort Donelson in February of ’63 and as I recall now there were two or three Union soldiers who were shot for selling military information to the enemy.”

  “Lieutenant Warner was not posing as a Yankee,” she said. “He would never do that. Nor was he a spy. He was captured while on a raid with General Forrest.”

  An eyebrow went up. “You are sure of that?”

  “1 was told by a comrade of Lieutenant Warner’s who was on the same raid. In addition I received an official communiqué in which I was given to understand that it was you who were responsible for his hanging.” Again she had manipulated the truth, hoping to call his bluff. But it didn’t work.

  “You must have been misinformed, Mrs. Warner,” he said blandly. Leaning over he flipped a box open and pulled out a cigar. She watched, seething inside, as he calmly lit it, the match flaring, illuminating strong, imperturbable features. He was lying. Of course he was lying, the arrogant cad! He knew the truth but would not reveal it.

  “You are a liar,” Amélie said with cold fury. “You do remember. But because it was a dishonorable and cowardly thing to have an innocent soldier executed you won’t admit it.

  His face went blank, his eyes expressionless. He studied her for a long, silent moment, then asked, “Is that why you came? To call me a coward?”

  “I came,” she said tartly, “to get my husband’s body so that he could have a decent burial, something you did not bother to give him.”

  “Very well.” He stubbed the cigar out. “I’ll see what I can do to locate him.”

  “Please do.”

  “Where are you staying?”

  “I am rooming with the Emorys on Cedar Street. But you needn’t bother to come. I shall return here tomorrow afternoon. Good day.”

  He said something she didn’t hear, for she had turned in a whirl of skirts and was out the door, slamming it behind her.

  The next morning she sat in the Emorys’ front parlor reading the Nashville Union and American. There was an article about General Grant and the speculation that he might be put in full command of the Federal armies. What of it? she thought cynically. More bloodshed. More killing. She dropped the paper to the floor and drummed her fingers on the carved arms of her chair. Except for the servants she was alone in the house. The Emorys and Frederick Geyser had left early to call upon Mrs. Emory’s newly-widowed sister-in-law, Kate. Babette, who had evinced a sudden sympathy for the poor woman whose husband had dropped dead of a heart seizure, leaving her with three small children, had gone with them. Amélie suspected that Babette was more concerned with Frederick Geyser than the widow. Freddie, as Babette called him, may have been much older than Babette, but he was eligible and she had cozied up to him like a cat to a dish of cream.

  The door bell rang and Amélie was wondering who it might be when the Emorys’ maid came in with a note addressed to her. It was from Damon Fowler.

  Dear Mrs. Warner:

  Army business has called me away and I shan't return until late this evening. However, I have made inquiries and find no record of your husband having been executed at Fort Donelson. If you wish to discuss this further I shall be at headquarters early tomorrow morning.

  D. Fowler

  * * *

  It was a curt, chilly communication couched in formal words that were like a slap in the face. She didn’t believe he had been called away. He was putting her off, and she firmly believed he meant to keep on doing so for however long she chose to go down to headquarters to question him. If she gauged him right—and she felt she did—he hoped she would eventually give up and return to Maryland.

  But she wasn’t going to give up. She had come too far, endured too much to be turned back by Damon Fowler’s indifference. Perhaps he didn’t know where Thaddeus was buried, but he had killed him and if he chose he could find out.

  “Ma’am?” The maid was standing in the doorway. “The boy that’s come wants to know is there a message?”

  Amélie rose. “I’ll talk to him.”

  She. went to the back doorstep where a twelve-year-old black boy with torn trousers and ripped shoes was chewing on a peeled stick.

  “Where is Colonel Fowler staying?”

  “De ’Ermitage, ma’am.”

  That evening Amélie found herself on the way to the Hermitage Hotel. An anger that had been growing all day had driven her from the warm house into the cold, icy streets and as she hurried along in the wintry dusk she could think of nothing but how she would like to put a rope around Damon Fowler’s neck as he had done to Thaddeus. Damn lying Yankee! She had told no one she was going but had slipped unseen out the back door and through the yard and alleyway. She had no clear idea what she was going to say or do. She wasn’t even sure that a confrontation would settle anything. But at least he would know she wanted retribution, that he was not going to literally get away with murder.

  As she approached the hotel and saw him go in, she experienced a fresh flow of resentment. She didn’t care that her thoughts of vengeance might be irrational. All she could see in her mind was Thaddeus helplessly dangling on the end of a hangman’s noose and Damon Fowler casually turning his back and walking away.

  She followed him into the hotel and up the stairs. He didn’t look back until he reached his door and heard her step behind him.

  “Amélie!”

  “Yes, it’s me. I couldn’t wait until tomorrow.”

  She was wearing a black cape with a hood she now threw back. “I wanted to talk to you.” Her eyes sparked in the dimness of the corridor.

  “Very well. Please come in.” His voice sounded tired, resigned. But to Amélie it seemed a voice that reflected boredom and it did nothing to dampen her anger.

  He held the door open and she went into the darkened room, standing still as he brushed past her. In a few moments a gaslight flickered on the wall. He struck a match and lit a porcelain lamp on the bureau.

  They were standing in a room swathed in deep crimson velvet. The bed, the heavy portieres at the windows, and the thick carpet glowed with wine-dark color. Only a rich man in the military could afford to keep such a suite for his own private quarters. And this ostentatious comfort when so many were making do in the cold and wet irritated her even more.

  “May I offer you a drink?” Damon asked. And for one swift moment Amélie was whisked back in time and space to the Barnum in Baltimore where she had come with a laundered shirt. The same polite question had been asked then, and she responded in the negative now as she had before. But she wasn’t the same girl; she was a woman now. She had seen suffering and bloodshed, and her husband was dead, killed by this man who now was coolly offering her a drink.

  “Please—won’t you sit?”

  After she had settled in a chair Damon pulled another from a table and sat down opposite her under the flickering wall bracket. For all its wavering un
certainty it was a harsh light and its glare revealed Damon’s features in strong relief. Amélie could see the lines in his forehead and around his eyes and the taut pull of weather-bronzed skin over cheekbones above the barbered, black beard. It was a lean, honed face, very different from the one she had seen in Baltimore. He wasn’t bored or indifferent, she realized, but tired with a fatigue that went beyond the purely physical.

  “I wish . . .’’he said in a voice burdened with a great weariness, “I wish this war was over.”

  Some of the tenseness went out of Amélie. It was what she felt, too. Yet, was Damon sincere? Did he really wish the war over? Or was he trying to divert her? She sat very still, attentive to his every word and movement.

  “It goes on and on, doesn’t it?” He turned haunted eyes on her, in a gaze that did not seem to be looking at, but through, her. She had the eerie sensation that he spoke to no one in particular, had indeed forgotten she was there. “We talked today of strategy, maneuvers, strikes. And victory, of course. Victory, ha!” He gave a mirthless laugh.

  The light flickered and he winced. “There are some scenes that won’t go away. Do you know what I mean?” His hollowed eyes sought hers, questioning.

  She did not answer but thought of her own scenes, dismissing them instantly. She wasn’t going to go soft now.

  “There was this reb at Shiloh,” he went on. “Runty fellow with a shock of brown hair. He had lost his cap and his rifle and he came at me with his bare hands. Bare hands! And me, armed to the teeth.” He paused. “I had only to pull the trigger, but I couldn’t. Someone else did. He died with a ball through the heart. Brave man.”

  He fell silent. Amélie was at a loss for words. This was a Damon Fowler she had not known before, a saddened, exhausted man plagued with nightmare memories. She understood only too well how he felt. She understood but firmly reminded herself that understanding did not excuse what he had done.

  “I’m sorry about Thaddeus,’’ he said. “But I didn’t hang him, Amélie. I didn’t hang or shoot him or even take him prisoner. I wish you would believe me.’’

  “I’m trying, but it isn’t easy.’’

  “It’s true. But’’—he gave her a small smile, the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes crinkling—“to be perfectly honest, I would have gladly killed him merely because he was your husband.’’

  “Why ...!’’

  “Yes. You see, Amélie, I love you,’’ he said simply.

  She looked at him, baffled.

  “You may scoff at that, my dear. But it’s so. It took me some time to realize I loved you. And I can tell you exactly when and where it happened. At Shiloh, after that foolhardy reb took a ball in his heart. ‘In the midst of death there is life,’ to misquote the Bible. Well, it hit me just like that ball.” He shook his head. “I suppose I must have loved you right from the day I saw you at Arbormalle. You were hopping mad at something I’d said about the Union being more important than states’ rights. And your eyes flashed and your face lit up and you were so beautiful you almost made a Confederate of me right then.’’ He chuckled at the memory.

  It was as clear in his mind as if it had been yesterday: the girl with the porcelain skin and the golden hair giving him a startled look from across the room in answer to his own lingering gaze. At first he had thought of her as just another pretty face. But when she spoke and he sensed the simmering hostility beneath the lovely façade he became intrigued. That’s when the mystery began. She had haunted his mind and his dreams through the months that followed. Each time he saw and made love to her he had been left with a lingering regret he couldn’t explain. He had tried to convince himself that Amélie was merely an episode in his life, that the war was all-important, that with time he would forget her. But he soon learned that forgetting Amélie was impossible. Why? he had asked himself for the dozenth time. And the answer had been so simple. He loved her.

  “You’re still very beautiful,” he said softly.

  A confused Amélie could only stare at him. He was in Yankee uniform, the dark-blue tunic, gilt buttoned up his broad chest to the high collar. But Amélie as she continued to look no longer saw the uniform; she saw the man as if by some magic she could look inside to the beating heart. He loved her.

  “Well, I was a fool,” Damon was saying. “I should have snatched you away from Thaddeus Warner at the wedding, abducted you, thrown you over my saddle and galloped off even if the whole of Anne Arundel County came after me. But I didn’t know, you see. I had an inkling when I made love to you at the Barnum Hotel and later in Annapolis, but my mind was full of the war.” He paused, looking past her again with disquieting eyes. “I thought—for a little while—that you might have loved me in return, or at least that there was a chance. But when I saw you yesterday with such loathing written on your face ...” He hesitated. “I didn’t mind so much you calling me a coward, but your voice, the set of your mouth—”

  “I was angry,” she said. “Can you blame me?”

  “No. But I swear on my honor I had nothing to do with your husband’s death.”

  Was he telling her the truth? It was possible. He loved her. All this time he had loved her. From the day he had seen her at Arbormalle.

  He lifted one of her gloved hands and brought it to his lips. “You still doubt me. What can I do to prove my innocence? I swear I haven’t seen Thaddeus since Arbormalle. I had no idea he was killed. None. Say you believe me.”

  “I don’t know,” she answered faintly.

  “What does your heart tell you, Amélie?”

  Her heart. It had been like an icy stone lodged in her chest, full of hate and the need for revenge. And now there was confusion and the beginnings of a thaw that pricked and burned. Should she believe him? Had she misjudged, wronged him?

  “Does it tell you I love you,” he asked gently, “that I would never, never hurt you?”

  She shook her head, unable to speak for the sudden tightness in her throat. His tenderness was unfair. It touched places she had thought were safely hidden, feelings she believed dead. His gentle voice was bringing back bittersweet memories of a moonlit night, of the meeting of eyes across a room, a smile, a kiss, an embrace. And he loved her. She had never imagined that he might love her.

  “Amélie . . . ?”

  Seconds passed before she dared lift her tear-blurred eyes.

  “My darling Amélie.”

  She made no effort to resist as he drew her on to his knees. With his strong arms around her she pressed her wet cheeks against his chest. She didn’t want to cry, hadn’t meant to, but the tears came nevertheless and she had no idea why.

  “There, there,” he soothed, caressing her hair. “Please, my darling, don’t cry.” She took his offered handkerchief and with a bent head dabbed at her eyes.

  He raised her chin. “Amélie, my sweet, beautiful rebel.”

  “Damon, I didn’t—”

  But his lips stopped the words and they kissed softly, lingeringly, a tender kiss that drove away the last shred of misunderstanding between them. He smiled into her eyes and kissed her again, resting his mouth on her cheek. Her hand went up and stroked the back of his head.

  After a few moments he rose abruptly with her in his arms and whirled her around, a laugh of joy low in his throat.

  “Oh, my Amélie, if you knew the times I’ve dreamed of this moment!” The smile died on his lips as he gazed down at her. “I want you, my darling, my love.”

  She never thought to refuse him—or herself. She came to him without reservation, without memory, without thought of right or wrong. She had shed her stultifying pride as she had her clothes, standing before his naked virility, humbled yet with a soaring gladness and a love that burned at white heat.

  He loosened her hair and it fell in a silken torrent about her white shoulders. Lifting a few strands he let them slip through his fingers. His eyes were no longer haunted but alive, liquid with love and desire.

  “Lovely,” he whispered. As his warm eyes
caressed her body, she became conscious of herself, of her beauty, the high, rounded breasts, the slender waist, the curved satiny hips, with an awareness that was vain, almost arrogant.

  “Well, my master, do I suit you?” she asked archly, taking a step back.

  “Oh, God, yes!”

  She shook her head, thrusting the golden mass over her shoulders. “Well, then?” she challenged mockingly.

  He took her wrist, pulling her to his chest. His mouth was hard, hungry, and bruising now, but she clung to him, her swollen lips responding, his strong, feverish embrace the only sure thing she knew in a world gone mad. He lifted his head and she could feel the pounding of his heart above the thrumming of her own. He touched his lips to her cheek, his beard scratching her tender skin as he moved to her throat, softly kissing the pulsing hollow. Then he bent to her breasts, tasting, savaging each coral nipple to a painful flowering.

  When he laid her on the bed she grasped his thick black hair, half in love play, half in an unconscious sexual urge to return pain. Laughing, he rolled her over so that she was on top. She raised herself on her hands, her hair falling forward, making a shimmering, perfumed tent. She saw the shadowy outline of his nose, his dark beard and the flash of white teeth as he smiled.

  “Shall I make love to you, then?” she asked, surprised at her own audacity.

  For answer his hard thighs squeezed her hips and he brought her down, so that she was stretched along his full length, the tips of her breasts pressed into the dark fur of his chest. He claimed her mouth again, turning her until she was on her back, kissing her, burying his head in her breasts. One hand slid between her inner thighs, delicately exploring the sensitive skin. Each stroke set her nerve ends quivering. Higher and higher, his deft fingers went, his breathing becoming more rapid.

  “No!” she moaned as his fingers found the curled patch of hair and slipped inside. Her hands clawed, clenching into tight fists. “No!” Heat flowed through her veins, a passionate urgency, a sweet agony.